The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventor(s), to the extent the work is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Performance analysis tools allow a developer to optimize software and hardware settings to allow a processor to perform operations at different speeds and/or with different levels of energy consumption to meet certain performance requirements of a given application. Performance analysis tools allow a developer to find bottlenecks and provide information on where to improve the software or hardware settings. Software-based performance analysis through instrumentation is widely available for non embedded processors with limited operating systems, such as processors for personal computers. Performance analysis tools for embedded processors—e.g., processors for smart phones—face challenges due to the limited resources and real time performance requirements on embedded processors.